Not Our Problem

Steven Cassidy is burning out in his job as a surgical trainee at New Zealand’s Paxton Hospital.

He is working far too hard, exams are looming and he has become so difficult to live with that his girlfriend Zoe has left him.

Cassidy decides to take a year off to regain his sanity and try to win Zoe back. He gets a job in hospital management, expecting to help the organisation run better before he goes home at 5 pm every evening.

But his timing is unfortunate: it’s 1992 and New Zealand’s public hospitals are being turned into competitive businesses, driven by a government that believes that market forces are the solution to all problems.

Cassidy battles with the managers who are trying to force the ideology to overcome the realities of public health care, as he watches relentless funding cuts having their effects on staff and patients.

His expert advice is rejected and Zoe leaves, perhaps for ever . . . it’s time for Cassidy to take matters into his own hands.

The characters are fictional but almost all the events are real, and incredibly, in 2015 there is discussion about repeating this disastrous experiment.

“Let us hope that politicians, policy makers, professionals and the general public read, enjoy, think deeply about and debate this book and never let another set of such ‘health reforms’ happen in New Zealand or elsewhere.”